ARTICLES

A STORY BY ALEX JORGENSEN 

Scritch. Scratch.

The pencil blurred across the paper.

"This can't wait. We are in a time of crisis," I heard somebody mutter in a strange language.

We are in a time of crisis. How did I know what they said?

I opened my eyes. My head hurt, bad. I felt drugged, but I knew I wasn't. The concrete wall began to shake. I looked towards the wall to see where the sound was coming from, but I couldn't. A strange restraint held me back.

Symbols were beginning to form in the wall in front of me. I squinted my eyes as the room shook again, tilting the chair I was sitting in.

Eight symbols formed on the wall. One looked like a blazing fire. Another hit shook the room, sending the chair and me in it to the ground.

"We need to evacuate! a deep voice shouted.

"Prisoner?" the voice asked on the other side of the blurry glass asked.

"Leave them, they must figure out what we've given them," another voice responded urgently.

A boom shook the room, slightly tilting the room. I slid towards the wall, hitting my head.

My head hit my desk. I rubbed my head, irritated. How did I get here?

I looked at my drawing I had drawn while sleeping. It was the eight symbols I had seen in my dream. Exactly as I saw them.

I picked up the paper and stared at what I had drawn. This was the 3rd night in a row that I had got up and unconsciously drawn something. And each time I had drawn, each picture I drew was somehow related to my dream.

"Rain! School! Get up or you're going to be late!" Mom's voice echoed down the stairs to me. I got up and shoved the drawing into my backpack and got on a lazy shirt and some sweatpants. I grabbed my backpack hanging by my desk chair and rushed upstairs to eat breakfast.

I grabbed an Eggo waffle, wolfed it down, rushed into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and emerged a few minutes later sprinting down the street to catch the bus on time.

I got onto the bus and fell into a seat next to Avery. She laughed.

"You didn't brush your hair this morning, did you Rain?" she asked as she handed me a brush for my semi-short hair. I combed it out and gave it back to her.

"How was your morning?" Avery asked.

"It was..." I began, then I stopped. Do I tell her about my dream? I thought anxiously. She doesn't know about the previous two, why tell her this one?

"It was a little hectic. I got up late."

"I'm just tired," Avery said, yawning. "I can't wait to see Gavin and Alisa and Tess and Ryan. They'll make me happier."

"They always do," I said. I leaned back and slept most of the way to school.

We got off the bus and made our way into the school where sat down at the lunch tables where we were dismissed for classes. I got out my binder and the papers I had drawn that morning flew out.

"Rain, what is this?" Gavin asked as he picked it up.

"No idea. I draw these things that I see in my dreams."

"What did you dream about?" Ryan asked.

"These symbols appearing on a wall and knowing some foreign language."

"Maybe it means something," Gavin muttered. Maybe it did. Maybe it was nothing.